Create Interactive Videos with These Storyline 360 Features

Videos are a commonly used learning tool in e-learning because they easily demonstrate how to do physical or web-based tasks. Since Articulate 360 Content Library gives you access to thousands of videos, it’s never been easier to find the one you need for your e-learning project. Here’s the best part: Storyline 360 makes it super-easy to take your videos a step further and make them interactive using a few key features.

Cue Points

Cue points are useful when it comes to creating interactive videos in Storyline. They are bookmarks you can place anywhere on the timeline to trigger events.

Cue points are useful when it comes to creating interactive videos because they can be used to pause the video at certain points on the timeline.

Here’s an example of an interactive video that uses cue points to pause the video at key moments to display a question the learner must answer.

Layers

Layers are another powerful feature e-learning designers frequently use to create interactive video. You can use layers to display additional information appearing on the screen while the video is playing or when it’s paused.

Here’s an example of an interactive video that uses layers to display additional pop-up information for each step of the process.

Hopefully these features and examples get you thinking about ways you can turn your video into something more engaging and interactive. What features do you use to create interactive videos? Let me know in the comments below!

Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 60-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.

Woot woot!! Love to hear that Jaclyn! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. I've added the 3 videos to the free downloads section if you're interested in having a peek at the Storyline 360 file: https://community.articulate.com/download/storyline-360-3-interactive-video-examples

Nicole,
Another very creative and informative article. One question... when using Hotspots, is there a way to pause the video? As I clicked on areas of the equipment, I started reading the text, but the video continued and I had to watch it again to check out all the Hotspots.
Thanks very much!

While Nicole gets to that, I'll try to answer here. I'm just going off the top of my head, but I believe you can have a trigger that pauses the timeline (hence, the video) for you when the playhead of the timeline reaches a cue point that you put in that timeline. From here, you can have a trigger that resumes the timeline when you click on a trigger, hence resuming the video. Maybe this isn't a perfect solution for you, but I hope it gives you an idea

Hiya Marty! Always nice to see your friendly and familiar face here in the community. In that example, I purposely left the video playing even when the hot spots are clicked, to show something different, but you definitely could pause it, as indicated by Daniel!
You could add a trigger that when the Hot Spot is clicked, it pauses the timeline. Then, on the rectangle pop out with the text/info on it, you could add a "Continue" button that the learner could click to "Resume the timeline" and the video would keep playing. Hope this helps!! :) PS Thanks Daniel for chiming in with your helpful suggestion!

Hi Jeffrey! I've added these to the Downloads section, you can find them here: https://community.articulate.com/download/storyline-360-3-interactive-video-examples. I have used the Modern Player and I am using the Seekbar. Let me know if you have any additional questions! :)

These are fab - we deal with very technical products that have to be installed and set up in a particular way and I will definitely be adding this activity to some of our instructional videos! In fact, it has helped me realise how I can improve a project that I am currently working on! Thanks for sharing!

Hi Nicole
How do you make your checkboxes in Medical Training Interactive Video mutually exclusive i.e one cannot select both checkboxes? Radio buttons are by default mutually exclusive but not checkboxes. I initially thought you used variables but cant find evidence of this. What am I missing? Thanx.

Hi Alphonso, that is done with button sets: https://community.articulate.com/series/74/articles/articulate-storyline-360-user-guide-how-to-work-with-button-sets
Button sets allow one 1 of the object in the set to how it's selected state at one time.

Hi Carlos!
Yes you can.
Simply publish the Storyline project to Articulate 360 and insert into Rise as a Storyline block.
Here's a tutorial with more information: https://articulate.com/support/article/Rise-Use-Storyline-Blocks-to-Embed-Storyline-360-Courses
Hope this helps :)

Nicole are there are accessibility issues associated with the hotspots? I'm assuming the screen readers will pick up text descriptions on the buttons if alt text used (if solid image) or if a text box is overlaid on a button shape?

Hi Alta! Thanks for your question. You need to insert the video filedirectly into your .story project in order to make it interactive, add triggers, layers, etc.. If you embed an existing video from another site, it will display that video as is.

This is great!
Is there a way to make the quizzes report points? or maybe have other interactions like drag and drop that pauses the videos? I need to create an interaction video but need to report point to my LMS.
Thanks!